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MANASQUAN — The mental health nonprofit group, Ryan’s Love of Life Foundation is in the midst of playing its third annual beach volleyball series.
Ryan’s Love of Life Foundation, based in Manasquan, focuses on bringing awareness and destigmatizing shame around addiction and mental health struggles, to let people know that seeking help is OK.
Sixteen organization volunteer members, and anyone who would like to join the team, are welcome to play.
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Team members wear Ryan’s Love of Life t-shirts during games to bring awareness of the organization to passersby and answer any questions people may have. The team has been playing for three weeks every Wednesday at 6 p.m. and will play until mid-August on the beach in front of Gee Gee’s.
“We put ourselves out there in the community each week to support and end the stigma and shame associated with mental health and addiction,” said Silvia Stark, founder of Ryan’s Love of Life. “Our hope with the volleyball team is just to be a community conversation starter.”
The team and foundation follow the motto: “No shame in our game.”
The foundation was founded in January of 2020 by Ms. Stark, a doctor of psychology and licensed professional counselor, her husband Jayson and daughter Brooke, to honor and commemorate her son Ryan who was lost to an opioid addiction in 2010.
“Mental health is health, and that’s one of the things that the foundation really tries to convey to people,” said Ms. Stark. “Our mental health is so important, it’s all connected — mind, body, soul.”
The organization raises money to provide transportation to rehabilitation centers and services and delivers snacks, toiletries and other necessities for those to have during therapy sessions.
Ryan’s Love of Life offers emergency transportation to treatment at Bright Harbor Healthcare in Bayville [formally known as Ocean Mental Health], for recovery services.
“Many years ago, I interned at Ocean Mental Health and so it’s really special to come full circle and be able to help the programs there,” said Ms. Stark. “Because I have specific intel into the needs that the behavioral health organization has.”
For more on this story, read the next edition of The Coast Star—on newsstands Thursday or online in our e-Edition.
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